French classroom film lifts gloom as Cannes closes

By Mike Collett-White and James Mackenzie

CANNES, France (Reuters) - A classroom drama set in a tough Parisian school lifted the gloom in Cannes, giving the world's biggest film festival a much-needed boost after critics panned many of the main competition entries.

It was better late than never for the annual movie marathon, with "Entre Les Murs" ("The Class") screening on the penultimate day of the festival.

Loud applause and cheers after the movie was shown placed it among the favorites to win the coveted Palme d'Or for best film when Sean Penn and his eight fellow jurors hand out the awards at a glittering evening ceremony on Sunday.

The ceremony wraps up 12 days of films, interviews, red carpets and late night revelry in the Riviera resort. In town this year were Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Clint Eastwood, Penelope Cruz, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford.

"The Class" is directed by Laurent Cantet and is based on an autobiographical novel by Francois Begaudeau who plays himself as a young French teacher facing a sometimes rebellious class.

Shot in a "fly-on-the-wall" style, the film is at times comic, tragic and surprisingly tense and explores themes including race, the generation gap, truth and prejudice.

Before The Class, critics in Cannes had been underwhelmed by the overall standard of the 22 films in competition, with one mumbling that you could hear "the barrel being scraped" by organizers trying to fill the program.

Nonetheless there were some highlights, notably "Waltz With Bashir", an Israeli animated documentary exploring a draftee's memories of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians living in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila camps.

Also high on critics' rankings was Hollywood veteran Clint Eastwood's "The Exchange", featuring Jolie as a 1920s mother who loses her son and takes on a corrupt Los Angeles police force.

Whether such a classic Hollywood production can win in Cannes, which prides itself on championing independent, innovative cinema, is unclear.

In an interview with French daily Le Monde, Penn said Cannes should do "the complete opposite to the Oscars", which reward the "consummate art of manipulation and good marketing".

DARK THEMES

He also said he had seen a "very good" selection of films, although he regretted there were not more comedies. The competition has been dominated by themes of plague, war, corruption, greed, poverty and family feud.

Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Three Monkeys", a brooding family tragedy, has been widely admired, while another family drama, "A Christmas Tale" by France's Arnaud Desplechin, is a firm favorite among domestic experts.

Italian entry "Gomorrah" was lauded for its brave depiction of the brutal world of the Naples mafia in a drama based on a bestseller by Italian author Roberto Saviano.